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King Kalakaua of Hawaii once traveled to Japan and proposed a marriage between Princess Kaiulani and Prince Yorihito of the Fushimi-no-miya branch of the Imperial family in the hopes of creating an alliance between Japan and Hawaii. The often cited reason is that Prince Yorihito was already engaged to Iwakura Kaneko, who was the daughter of a Fukuoka area daimyo who was supportive of Meiji. They married in 1898, had no children, and the Fushimi branch died out.

If Yorihito hadn't been engaged, do you think there's anyway the proposal might have been accepted?

What if Hawaii's situation had been more stable and independent of the United States? (An academic question since it would need a POD possibly reaching back to the 1850s, which would destroy the specifics of the proposal, but I'm still interested to know people's opinions.)

Emperor Meiji had one son who was very sickly after he was born. There was also an assassination attempt on Emperor Meiji. Basically it doesn't seem like it would take much to see the mainline of the Imperial family die out and see the ascendency of the Fushimi branch in its place. If the Fushimi branch had ascended, would Kalakaua's proposal be more likely to be accepted due to the need to produce an heir, or less likely due to an expectation to keep the mainline of the Imperial family purely Japanese (I don't know what Japanese racial attitudes were like at the time)?

Finally, provided you think the marriage is possible, what do you think would be the consequences for Japan and Hawaii if Yorihito and Kaiulani had married either before or after the ascendency of the Fushimi branch to the Imperial throne?
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